Thy angel watch me through the night
by Kedi
Summary: Archie is an injured soldier and Ruby a battlefield nurse. (World War I AU)


**Summary:** Archie is an injured soldier and Ruby a battlefield nurse. World War I AU.

**Characters:** Ruby Lucas, Archie Hopper, very brief mentions of Victor Whale and Mary Margaret Blanchard.

**Pairing:** Red Cricket friendship - or at least something that could be the start of a friendship.

**Warning:** Angsty fluff or fluffy angst, not quite sure…

**Author's note:** Based on a prompt from The Guiding Path's prompt master list. I say "based on" because the prompt asked for WWII. I'm difficult and walk to the beat of my own drum apparently. Or, you know, I misread the prompt and by the time I realised it I had written too much to start over. :P

. o O o .

_Now I lay me down to sleep,_  
_I pray the Lord my soul to keep,_  
_thy angels watch me through the night,_  
_and keep me safe till morning's light._

_If I should die before I wake,_  
_I pray the Lord my soul to take._

. o O o .

After nearly a year as a nurse at the base hospital near Calais, Ruby Lucas had gotten used to the dull dread her favourite colour now stirred in her; before the war red had been fire and warmth and passion, now it was blood and pain and death.

Which may have been the initial reason why he intrigued her so.

His hair shone brilliantly red against the white of the hospital sheets but there was no blood, no missing limbs, no pained cries that followed her into her fitful sleep at night. Though he had the haunted look of one who had returned from the trenches, all in all he looked hale and healthy - at least compared to many of the other patients in the hospital. But when she touched his skin she found it burning under her hand, and when she listened closely she could hear the ominous rasp in his breathing; a wet unpleasant sound that accompanied each laborious breath.

Mustard gas, Dr. Whale had told her. One of his trench mates had panicked when the dangerous cloud had come seeping and had dropped his gas mask in the mud. The redhead had forced his own mask over the face of the panicking man, earning him a whiff of the gas himself before he found the other mask and got it over his own face. It hadn't been enough to kill him and he had even been lucky enough to escape with only first degree burns, but that single whiff had done a number on his lungs.

According to his medical papers Lieutenant Archibald Hopper had been sent to the casualty clearing station closest to his unit on three separate occasions following the encounter with the gas, unable to completely shake a relatively mild but stubbornly persistent cough. But then the cough had taken a turn for the worse, and when he was brought in a fourth time - following a collapse in the mud after repeated assurances that he was fine - he had been sent further down the evacuation line.

By the time he reached the base hospital he had been delirious with fever and his lungs badly congested. The killer in this instance would be pneumonia rather than enemy fire.

Wetting the cloth in cold water Ruby gently wiped his brow. The redhead shuddered under her touch and Ruby's hand stilled. Would he wake? He hadn't yet, but now it seemed he might be on the verge of…

Blue. He had the most startling blue eyes, intense despite their feverish brightness. For a moment they just looked at each other.

"Where..." He swallowed with difficulty.

Ruby put the cloth back in the water basin on the bedside table and reached for the pitcher next to it, pouring him a glass of cold water. Helping him lift his head she carefully let him drink but moved the glass away after only a few sips.

"Easy, you'll make yourself sick," she murmured as he let out a weak whimper of protest. "Let it settle and you can have more in a little while."

"Wh..where -"

A vicious coughing fit stole the rest of what he tried to say and though Ruby immediately propped him up in an attempt to ease his breathing, in the end all she could do was curse her own helplessness as he struggled to get enough air down his uncooperative lungs between coughs that shook his whole frame.

When the coughing at long last eased up the exhausted soldier's head rested heavily on Ruby's shoulder as he gasped through his tears. She held him close, rocking him as she rubbed soothing circles on his back, wishing there was more she could do. Though violent the coughing didn't seem to have helped much at all - despite the obvious congestion the coughs had failed to dislodge anything and the ominous rattling in his chest was if possible even more pronounced than before.

"You're in the hospital, lieutenant," she said softly, answering the question she assumed he had tried to ask.

But he shook his head weakly against her shoulder. "A-August…" He was painfully short of breath and she winced in sympathy. "... Booth... where..."

August Booth was probably the soldier who had panicked in the face of the mustard gas. It seemed that in his feverish delirium Hopper did not realise that months had passed between the gas attack and now, and was worried about his friend. Of course she had no idea where this Booth fellow was at the moment nor did she have any guarantee that he was still alive, but Ruby had no qualms whatsoever lying to keep a dying man happy.

"He's fine, Archie," she promised, opting for a show of familiarity rather than the distance of rank, hoping it would soothe him. "He'll be 'round to visit you as soon as you get better. He's fine, don't worry." She eased him back down on the bed and forced a reassuring smile to her face. "You saved him, Archie. August's fine, don't worry."

Apparently she had guessed correctly this time because the blue eyes closed in relief as he relaxed against the pillows. He opened his mouth to say something but seemed to think better of it and instead just nodded, saving what little breath he had left.

"Ready for a little more water?"

She let him have a few more mouthfuls before putting the glass back on the bedside table and wetting the cloth again. He let out a faint sound of relief as the cold fabric touched his burning skin.

"Th-thank..."

"Shush soldier, this is no time for manners." Her scolding was gentle. "Save your breath and save your strength. You'll need both to get better."

His faint but thankful smile nearly broke her heart. Dr. Whale had all but told her that lieutenant Hopper would breathe his last before the night was over; his lungs were just too poor, and it was highly unlikely he would survive long enough for his body to fight off the pneumonia. Before the war Ruby might have condemned the young doctor for his pessimism, but she had been a nurse for a long time now, too long, and she knew that as distasteful as it may seem the medical staff had to prioritise. It was basic triage, really, when it all came down to it; there was nothing more Dr. Whale could do for lieutenant Hopper, so he would not waste time trying when his energies could be used to save some other poor sod who had better prospects of surviving.

She supposed it was lucky, in that slightly morbid sort of way she had come to appreciate amidst the insanity of war, that Hopper had come to the hospital during a lull in the action; had it been busy no nurse would have been spared to sit by his side, and he would have been left to fight - and lose - all alone.

"You'll get through this, Archie, you'll see." This time the lie tasted bitter and her voice shook, but he was in no condition to notice. She wiped his brow and silently despaired.

As the night progressed it became predictably harder and harder for him to breathe; the struggle growing heavier as his strength waned, coughs too weak to do any good but depleting more of the little energy he had left. Ruby borrowed extra pillows from the storage closet so she could prop him up properly in an attempt to facilitate his breathing, but though it seemed to help a little, it didn't help enough. She sat with him, alternatingly wiping his face and neck to cool him and holding his hand, murmuring reassurances and silly nonsense in the hope that it would calm and comfort him.

At one point in the early morning he opened his eyes and looked right through her with a heartbreakingly frightened look on his face as he gasped desperately, and she was sure then that his final moment had come. She spoke his name but he did not hear, and Ruby remembered what Mary Margaret had told her once; that the hearing was the very last thing to go...

Ruby waited for that last shuddering death rattle she had heard too many times already in her 26 years of life, but instead he closed his eyes tightly and with sweat beading on his brow kept struggling - and against all odds, hour after hour, his lungs kept drawing air. His will to live was stronger than any of them could have imagined. Lips and fingertips were tinted blue, but still he doggedly fought on, and miraculously, magically, when Dr. Whale came for his rounds Archie Hopper was still breathing.

When his fever broke around mid-morning Ruby was the only one not surprised, and when he a day later blearily opened his eyes she was there by his bedside to welcome him back to the land of the living. The rasp in his breathing was still there, but fainter now, and his lips and fingers had lost their blue tint. She couldn't keep the happy grin from her face when he smiled and weakly squeezed her hand.

_Fin?_


End file.
